Job Adjustments in March 2015 Update

[Akihiko_Matsui]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:

• The addition of a new spell known as “Ardor”
• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills

I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using weapon skills with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack.
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  

  • Shark Bite
  • Mercy Stroke
  • Mandalic Stab
  • Rudra’s Storm
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

[MilkMansKid]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:



I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using the weapon skills Sneak Attack and Trick Attack
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  
  
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

All I see here is THF this THF that did you forget that this is a bigger nurf to DNC and BRDs (simple fix change their respective mythic wses to current RS lvls, yes I also now for mythic holders of those 2 jobs it would make them even stronger but not many people actually have them so ) which aren't at the crazy dmg lvls THFs are atm? Also I see you mention SAM then go into no detials so are they or are they not also getting hit with a nurf? Because if there not all you doing is turning it back into what was pre ws update and SAM only then.

[larrymc]

All I see here is THF this THF that did you forget that this is a bigger nurf to DNC and BRDs which aren't at the crazy dmg lvls THFs are atm? Also I see you mention SAM then go into no detials so are they or are they not also getting hit with a nurf? Because if there not all you doing is turning it back into what was pre ws update and SAM only then.

In a sense you are correct, they are going back to pre-ws update - which was "SAM only". And to address that gap between SAM vs everything else they introduce Ardor which boosts jobs that have more attack rounds between weaponskills (2 handed jobs - thf, dnc, nin, blu, etc). It just depends on how potent Ardor will be for those jobs.

[Smokenttp]

Without knowing the potency it will be pretty hard to guess but i am not sure if i agree with this, lets assume a scenario that with the new spell it gets as powerfull as it is today this will generate the following:

1- You will need an rdm in your party to deal heavy damage.

2- Depending on the job you will need someone to open the skill chain for you (nerfing the whole purpose of the update wich was to give those jobs more freedom in solo situations) and that is ignoring the main issue at hand (thf) , since thf only gets those real high damage under sneak and trick attack buffs and adjusting the wses will weaken other jobs dmg output (unless you walk with a rdm).

As mentioned earlier i am not sure if its the best aproach,if you need to weaken thf i would rather you power up sneak and/or trick attack and put then under higher cooldown (or you could divide then into sneak attack = the damage ja with higher damage potential + higher cooldown and trick attack the hate control ja with lower or no damage boost at all under a lower cooldown but transfer all the hate like snarl maybe? not sure about it) then lowering the damage on those ws, i mean if you take a look at the axes they are low because of the bst adjustments and all but the ws ended up all quite weak so unless you are a bst you have no reason to use an axe (dual wield axes run are sad), i am not sure if people will use lets say dnc for exemple at all if to funcion well they need a rdm to buff your damage, i mean if you where going with a rdm anyway its all well but what if the rdm is actually not part of your startegy? its a party slot right there and i know even tough this is a way to push back rdm into parties you could consider some other things as well like making possible for it to substitute in a certain extent an already existing job in case no one can find then to play with (see sugestions bellow).

3- Well the spell do absolutely NOTHING if you can not skill chain.

So having this in mind even if the potency for ardor is extremely high im not sure if this is the best way to deal with the current nerf issue (sneak/trick attack damage) but it might be indeed a good way for other jobs to try to catch up a bit.


Now for some off topic sugestions since matsui is watching this post, could you please consider adding some sort of occult amem (rebalancing this would be nice as well like giving it in lower levels , for more jobs naturally and adjusting poetncy) for healing magic as well? (giving it to both hybrid jobs and whm with the higher potency version on whm and a lower poetency on hybrids but let then have occult amem as well, also consider some form of tp switching ja between smn avatars and player).

The reason is that mages get some pretty interresting utility wses like shattersoul but barely use it because they have to stay safe.

As for rdm enfeenbling magics could you actually consider giving some more distract like debuffs for rdm with more things that geo has (not as potent as geo and i know its really hard to balance those but i would love to see things like a direct defense/acc/magic defence/attack/magic attack down line of debuffs on rdm as well (give it 2 tiers like with distract making tier 1 subjob level and tier 2 stronger on higher levels the same way you did with distract)).

I do realise some of those are covered with blind , bio , dia etc and that they can stack with those as well as with the geo equivalent but this would put rdm back in track as an enfeenbling user as well as giving some interresting tools as a subjob option.

And finally could you consider a buff on crusade( the nin version as well)? this was a step on the right direction with the tanking issue but i think that the potency is still a bit low.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for your attention.

[Janethetaru]

Bite me. Nerfing rudra's is a terrible idea. For the first time thf and dnc aren't laughed at and are actually considered DD, especially DNC. I'm for leveling the playing field, but how about you just buff the 2h weapon skills? I don't care if you nerf sneak attack and trick attack effects to rudra's storm, but unstacked ws should remain the same. The rudra's buff was a bigger boon to DNC and BRD than to THF. THF was already good, and DNC was laughed at. DNC is competitive now, and suddenly because a few haters complained you want to screw that all up? I don't think so.

[Selindrile]

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

I live in terror of the inevitable nerfbat.

[Ladynamine]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:



I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using the weapon skills Sneak Attack and Trick Attack
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  
  
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

Because you know:

It's NERF or Nothin'!

Seriously, You are taking away DNC's 1 good ws that can do decent damage. But why am I not suprised.

[Ataraxia]

[QUOTE=Akihiko_Matsui;542969]Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.


Important message for Akihiko_Matsui I know this is a little late but please reconsider and do more testing. If you bring down dagger weapon skill than you are making sword, axe and katana on top of the list. I don't think it's a good idea to Nerf thief weapon skill because right now the job is very popular and many people love to play thief. Thief can't clear content without the help of Bard and White Mage and it is the same for all other melee job. The adjustment to weapon skills that need major improvement are shark bit and aeolian edge along with other elemental weapon skills for sword, axe, katana, club, great axe, great sword, and staff.


I am really concern about Ardor spell because this will make Rdm getting all the attention to every content and that is not good. I know SA and TA make thief a good damage dealer but that's just how the job works.

Improve accuracy of melee and weapon skill damage:

Monk
Samurai
Dark Knight
Warrior
Dragoon
Rune Fencer


I say NO to Ardor spell! Please let's not take a step backward for FFXI future with nerf but a step going forward and making it better allowing other job to close the cap.

Yes! To:

Regen III and IV spell for Red Mage and Paladin.
Cure III and IV spell for Run Fencer.
Regen spell duration double for White Mage Only.
Sch, Blm, Geo, Run, PLd have their own haste spell since there is haste II now.

[Janethetaru]

It has come to my attention that many people voicing their displeasure with the idea of a rudra's storm nerf are being reported (by sams) and banned from the forums. This is unacceptable. No amount of samurai butthurt will silence the resounding chorus of the masses that do not want a rudra nerf. As I have said before, if you want to achieve more balance, a buff to 2hand weapon skills is more appropriate. DRK and DRG have been laughed at for too long, and DRK should be about the best DD in the game.

[Ataraxia]

Hail, adventurers! Matsui here with an update for you.

I would like to inform you that, based on your feedback, we have begun to consider balance adjustments for melee jobs, specifically the thief and samurai, in the March version update.

We are currently looking at adjusting balance in the following two ways:



I would like to share with you the thought process behind these adjustments.

• The addition of Ardor
  In our preview of job adjustments several days prior, we made mention of a new magic spell known as “Ardor.” We elected to add this spell in order to decrease the gaps in damage dealt between the various melee jobs.
  
  As noted in that topic, Ardor increases skillchain damage based on the number of successful melee hits up until the time the weapon skill is activated.
  
  Jobs that often go for long periods of time without using weapon skills will receive stronger bonuses, thereby decreasing the damage gap that currently exists.

• The adjustment of certain dagger weapon skills
  One topic keeps popping up where we hear players discussing the thief: skillchain damage when using weapon skills with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack.
  
  These skills are particularly effective in content such as Wanted battles, where it‘s possible for thieves to accumulate TP in advance and when combat ends in a short period of time, but we believe that this is one of the job’s strengths.
  
  Not all content enables players to accumulate TP in advance the way Wanted battles do, and other melee classes are competitive with thieves in extended combat scenarios.
  
  As such, we wish to avoid adjusting Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, as doing so would be tantamount to destroying part of the thief job’s identity.
  
  However, in its current state thief damage output is on par with or even surpasses that of other melee jobs even in long duration combat, and upon looking at melee jobs as a whole, we cannot deny that thieves are located at the top of the charts in a wide variety of content.
  
  Ardor has an incredibly strong synergy with thieves, who autoattack quite frequently, and thus we expect that their skillchain damage would increase to numbers even higher than they currently are. As such, we believe it necessary to somewhat reduce the potency or certain dagger weaponskills in order to maintain balance with other jobs.
  
  We are currently considering adjusting the following four weaponskills.
  
  
  
  These adjustments are meant to normalize damage between melee jobs, and there are some adjustments that can be viewed as nerfs when taken on the individual job level, so we wished to communicate these details to you in advance as we continue to thoroughly discuss this matter.

hello I like to share this video with Akihiko_Matsui, Dev team and all FFXI community. This is not my video but i found them in youtube. Since akihiko matsui take people opinion about thief seriously than maybe these video will open his eye more.


Kamihr Drifts Delve 1-5 + Utkux 8-18-2014[/B]

18-22 minute Clear 6/6 SAM, MNK, BRD, COR, BLM, WHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcUlB5f_ELw


I don't think a Thief can clear that in a short amount of time.


Yorcia Weald Delve 1 - 5 + Wopket 6-20-2014

Clear 20 minute 4/6 SAM, BRD, WHM, WHM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_60Fermz30


As you can see in that video SAM is extremely good. Fudo, Fudo, Fudo spam seems to be a lot better than THF. So if a THF can do that in less than 20 minute than please do and Nerf it but I highly doubt it.

Japanese group SAM, DRK, SCH, BRD, COR, WHM clear that in less than 15 minute but don't have links since maybe it was taken down. :/



Now for the best video in the internet have to offer! =)


Delve Yorcia Weald 1-5 + Wopket 3-14-2015

Clear less than 12 minute. 4/6 SMN, GEO, RDM, RUN


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvqyMyZM1qY


Thank you for the recent update February because some job do amazing things. Mythic Geo and Mythic SMN you gonna love them.

Since job like RNG, DRG, THF, DNC share Piercing and they nerf Thief so I guess that means RNG and DRG will be at the top dmg of the list. PUP and BST recently got an update and no one knows how strong those job are but I'm sure they are better than a thief in Solo. It's true that a THF does do really well in wanted battle but those are 15 minute timer to kill an NM. The question I have for the dev team is can a THF or DNC clear the new delve content in that amount of time less than 20 minute?